Mumbai University Solved Question Papers
Law of Industrial Designs GI Layout Designs Data Protection and Trade Secrets
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
LLM · Group 3 Law of Intellectual Property and Information Technology
2024-25 Examination
munotes.in
Mumbai
First published on munotes.in on 14 September 2026.
Published by munotes.in, Mumbai.
Model answers written and edited by the munotes.in editorial desk.
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The University does not publish an official answer key for this paper. The answers in this volume are model answers, written to show how a full-mark answer is built. They are a study aid, not an authority on what an examiner marked.
The question paper reproduced here is the paper as set by the University of Mumbai at the 2024-25 examination.
The law in these answers is stated as at September 2026, and four changes date most textbooks on this subject. The Intellectual Property Appellate Board was abolished with effect from 4 April 2021, so appeals under the Geographical Indications Act now lie to the High Court, while the Layout-Design Appellate Board was never constituted and its sections, like the provision naming that Board as a stand-in, were never brought into force, so that Act has no appellate body at all. Since 1 August 2024 falsely representing a geographical indication as registered has been a penalty imposed by an officer of the Registry rather than an offence. India acceded to the Locarno Agreement with effect from 7 September 2019. And the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 commences in stages, its main duties applying from 13 May 2027.
The questions below are the paper as the University of Mumbai set it at the 2024-25 examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2024-25 examination, reproduced as the University of Mumbai set them, in the order it set them. Nothing has been reworded, added or left out. Only the answers are ours. See the original question paper.
Duration 3 hours · Total marks 100 · 7 questions answered
Instructions printed on the paper
How to use this volume
Solve the paper first, under exam conditions and against the clock. Then read the answers here and mark your own. Reading a solution before attempting the question feels productive and teaches very little, because recognising an answer is not the same as being able to write one.
Answer
For full marks, cover: two parts, with the weight on the second. WHAT INDUSTRIAL DESIGNS ARE: the idea of appearance applied to mass-produced articles, the statutory definition, and how a design differs from an invention, a work of art and a trade mark. WHICH DESIGNS ARE REGISTRABLE: take a design through each test the Act sets, namely the kind of feature, the article, the industrial process, eye appeal, novelty or originality, no prior disclosure, significant distinction, morality and the exclusions, giving a real example with each, and finish with a table of registrable and non-registrable designs. Use Cello, Whirlpool, Apollo Tyres, Bharat Glass Tube, Crocs, Rajesh Masrani and Ritika.
The idea. An industrial design is the look of a manufactured product: the contour of a bottle, the arrangement of a washing machine's panels, the pattern of a tyre's tread, the print on a length of fabric. It is what the eye sees, not what the product does. Because it is applied to articles made in quantity, a single successful design can be reproduced across thousands of products.
The international description. Article 25.1 of the TRIPS Agreement requires protection for independently created industrial designs that are new or original, and allows Members to exclude designs dictated essentially by technical or functional considerations. That captures the two essentials: a design must add something new to the appearance of goods, and it must not be a disguised monopoly over function.
The Indian definition. Section 2(d) of the Designs Act, 2000 defines a design as only the features of shape, configuration, pattern, ornament or composition of lines or colours applied to any article, whether in two dimensional or three dimensional or in both forms, by any industrial process or means, which in the finished article appeal to and are judged solely by the eye. It excludes modes or principles of construction, mere mechanical devices, trade marks, property marks and artistic works.
How a design differs from its neighbours. Take a new electric kettle. A new heating element that boils water faster is an invention, for patent law. The brand name printed on it is a trade mark. A painting of the kettle hung in a gallery is an artistic work. The distinctive shape of the kettle's body and handle, made in a factory by the thousand, is the industrial design.
Test one: the design must consist of the listed features. Only shape, configuration, pattern, ornament, or a composition of lines or colours qualify. In Cello Household Products v. Modware India, AIR 2017 Bom 162, the registered design of the PURO bottle lay in its shape, configuration and surface pattern, egg-like curves and stepped surfaces. In Whirlpool of India Ltd. v. Videocon Industries Ltd., 2014 (60) PTC 155 (Bom), it was the shape and configuration of a washing machine. In Apollo Tyres Ltd. v. Pioneer Trading Corporation, 2017 SCC OnLine Del 9791, it was a tyre's tread pattern. A decorative band embossed around a steel tumbler is ornament; an arrangement of coloured stripes on a floor tile is a composition of lines or colours.
Test two: it must be applied to an article. Section 2(a) defines an article as any article of manufacture and any substance, artificial or partly artificial and partly natural, including any part capable of being made and sold separately. The shape of a car's tail-lamp, sold as a spare, can therefore be registered on its own. A design is always registered for articles in a class: under section 5(3) not more than one class, chosen, since the Designs (Amendment) Rules, 2021, from the current edition of the international Locarno Classification under rule 10(1) of the Designs Rules, 2001.
One class, decided by the Controller. Section 6(1) allows a design to be registered for any or all of the articles in a prescribed class, and any question about the class to which an article belongs is decided by the Controller, whose decision is final (section 6(2)); rule 10(2) of the Rules asks him to consult the applicant where needed. The proprietor may later register the same design for other articles in the same class without his earlier registration counting against novelty (section 6(3)), but a design registered in one class gives no right in another.
Test three: it must be applied by an industrial process. The features must be applied "by any industrial process or means, whether manual, mechanical or chemical, separate or combined". Garments produced in quantity from a designer's sketches meet this test. In Ritika Private Limited v. Biba Apparels Private Limited (Delhi High Court, 23 March 2016), the RITU KUMAR sketches and drawings had been applied to dresses made in numbers exceeding fifty; they were therefore designs capable of registration, and because they had not been registered, copyright in them had ceased under section 15(2) of the Copyright Act, 1957.
Contrast: a work of art is not a design. In Rajesh Masrani v. Tahiliani Design Pvt. Ltd., AIR 2009 Delhi 44 (DB), couture prints and embroidery patterns made in not more than twenty pieces of any garment were held to be artistic works, outside section 2(d), and protected by copyright without registration.
Test four: it must appeal to and be judged solely by the eye. The test is the appearance of the finished article. In Bharat Glass Tube Ltd. v. Gopal Glass Works Ltd., (2008) 10 SCC 657, the registered pattern for figured glass sheets, class 25-01, was compared by looking at the finished glass, not the engraving rollers used to make it. Features hidden inside a product, or ones that matter only for how it works, fail this test.
Test five: it must be new or original, section 4(a). The Supreme Court in Bharat Glass Tube explained that "new or original" means not published anywhere or made known to the public, created for the first time or not reproduced by anyone. "Original" under section 2(g) includes what is old in itself but new in its application: a traditional paisley motif applied for the first time to the body of a mobile phone can be original.
Test six: it must not have been disclosed to the public before filing, section 4(b). Disclosure anywhere in India or any other country, by publication in tangible form, by use or in any other way, before the filing or priority date, bars registration. In Crocs Inc. USA v. Bata India Ltd. (Delhi High Court, Division Bench, 24 January 2019), archived pages showed the clog designs on websites, including Crocs' own, before the priority date, and the registrations were held prima facie liable to cancellation. Disclosure in confidence (section 16), at a notified exhibition followed by an application within six months (section 21), and during the convention period (section 44(2)) do not count.
Test seven: it must be significantly distinguishable, section 4(c). A design not significantly distinguishable from known designs, or from a combination of known designs, cannot be registered. A trade variation, such as a standard bucket with a slightly thicker rim, fails. Crocs treated minor variations of age-old footwear designs as unprotectable, while Cello shows that an everyday article can still carry a registrable design if its combination of features is new.
Test eight: no scandalous matter and nothing against public order. Section 4(d) bars a design comprising scandalous or obscene matter, and sections 5(1) and 35 allow refusal of a design whose use would be contrary to public order or morality.
Test nine: it must not fall within an exclusion. A mode or principle of construction, or anything that is in substance a mere mechanical device, is not registrable, because design law protects appearance, not function. In Cryogas Equipment Private Limited v. Inox India Limited, 2025 INSC 483, the Supreme Court described a test of functional utility for deciding whether a work's dominant purpose makes it a design. Trade marks and property marks are excluded, and so are artistic works, as Rajesh Masrani shows.
A worked example: a new pressure cooker. A manufacturer develops a pressure cooker with a sculpted body, a floral pattern printed on its lid, a new safety valve and its brand name moulded into the handle. The shape of the body and the pattern on the lid are registrable designs if they are new, were not published before filing, and differ significantly from known cookers. The valve is a mechanical device, a matter for patent law if for any. The brand name is a trade mark. If the manufacturer shows the cooker at a trade fair notified under section 21, after giving the Controller notice, it has six months from the first showing to apply without the exhibition counting against novelty.
Who can register. Only a person claiming to be the proprietor of the design may apply under section 5(1); section 2(j) identifies the proprietor as the person for whom the design was made for good consideration, an acquirer, or otherwise the author.
| Design | Registrable? | Why | Authority |
|---|---|---|---|
| New shape and surface pattern of a water bottle | yes | shape, configuration and pattern judged by the eye | Cello |
| Shape and configuration of a washing machine | yes | appearance of a manufactured article | Whirlpool |
| Tread pattern of a tyre | yes | pattern applied industrially | Apollo Tyres |
| Pattern embossed on figured glass sheets | yes | new pattern on a finished article | Bharat Glass Tube |
| Garment sketches used to manufacture dresses in quantity | yes, and must be registered to keep protection | capable of registration; copyright ends after fifty reproductions | Ritika |
| Couture prints made in a few pieces | no | artistic works, outside section 2(d) | Rajesh Masrani |
| Clog design shown online before the priority date | no | prior publication, section 4(b) | Crocs (2019) |
| Design | Registrable? | Why | Authority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minor variation of a standard bucket | no | not significantly distinguishable, section 4(c) | section 4(c) |
| A hinge mechanism valued for how it works | no | mechanical device or mode of construction | section 2(d) |
| A brand logo | no | trade mark excluded | section 2(d) |
Conclusion. An industrial design is the appearance of a mass-produced article, defined by section 2(d) as the features of shape, configuration, pattern, ornament or composition of lines or colours applied to an article by an industrial process and judged solely by the eye, distinct from an invention, a work of art and a trade mark. A design is registrable if it consists of those features, is applied to an article in one class by an industrial process, appeals to the eye in the finished article (Bharat Glass Tube), is new or original and not disclosed anywhere before filing (Crocs), is significantly distinguishable from known designs, contains nothing scandalous or against public order, and falls outside the exclusions for functional features, trade marks, property marks and artistic works (Rajesh Masrani, Cryogas). Bottles (Cello), washing machines (Whirlpool), tyre treads (Apollo Tyres) and industrially made garments (Ritika) are typical registrable designs.
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